As you may have noticed, we have restored full HTML functionality to the homepage of each blog. Everything you and your contributors put in the BODY tab of the text editor will be visible with formatting on the home page.

While I agree that it looks better, it is also higher maintenance.  We will all just need to be vigilant in educating our users about the importance of proper formatting techniques.

In the coming days, we will be implementing pagination to the page. This means that the full text (at least the part you choose to put in the BODY tab) of the first 20 posts will appear followed by the titles of the next 20 followed by a "NEXT" or "PREVIOUS" button. To see this functionality in action, take a look at www.simplyrecipes.com.

Saturday afternoon we completed our scheduled update. My personal apologies for a process that took nearly 20 hours. Fortunately, we scheduled it during some of the slowest hours of the week.

With the upgrade comes improved server performance and reliability. Publishing speeds will be faster. It will also allow give us the ability to roll out new features and functionality in the days and weeks ahead.

Thanks to all who provided specific feedback during the upgrade. It allowed us the ability to quickly identify buggy areas that needed to be addressed.

Have a good week.

The images that follows is a screenshot of the latest post on the National politics blog. I know it may look pretty to some, but this does not work. We will continue to look for solutions to prevent this from our less tech savvy contributors while providing as much creative latitude to those that are more comfortable with the interface. Your feedback on this issue would be very helpful.

Hello Red County Editors,

This is a tutorial designed to help editors identify new pen members and raise exposure for Red County within their community. Also, we have expanded the user tutorial to include information on posting YouTube videos as well as the proper spacing of content.

We welcome your suggestions and encourage new ideas! Red County is in the process of expanding into new markets, with the goal of becoming the largest, most influential right-of-center blog network in the country.

Today Matt Cunningham and I returned from the GOP convention. While spending much time absorbing the excitement and spirit of the convention, we also spent much time exchanging ideas with fellow conservative bloggers. We will further engage these bloggers at the upcoming BlogWorldExpo later this month. As a result of these conversations, we are making several immediate changes to the Red County site. These changes are intended to evolve the site into one that is much lower maintenance for us editors, provide a platform that is more scalable across many platforms, and provides for a more pleasant experience for our readers. The immediate changes include: 1. The home page of each blog will no longer display HTML. While formatting, images, and videos are welcome, they will only be displayed when the entire article is viewed. This change will eliminate the disappearance of the right column and reduce some of the problems associated with some contributors refusal to NOT cut & paste out of Microsoft Word. Yes, this change limits the visual appeal of the home page of each of your blogs. However, the rewards of lower maintenance and a more reliable user experience offsets those limitations. 2. We are going to start including Twitter feeds into the website. Twitter (www.twitter.com) is going to drive "micro-blogging" and Red County is going to be at the forefront of this evolution. 3. We will be installing a polling module that will allow you to easily include the creation of polls in your posts. 4. Argie Frudakis will be sending you an email shortly to encourage your referrals to potential advertisers. Please take her up on the offer as it will go a long way towards helping Red County expand. As always, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

As the Red County blog platform continues to evolve, we have identified an interim solution for the problems associated with contributors inadvertently cutting & pasting malicious code into their posts.

The solution specifically addresses the issue as it relates to editors who like to post daily news roundups. If you don't post news roundups, these changes will not impact your blog.

The goal is to make ensure news roundups have working links, are visually appealing, and are located in a high profile position.

HERE'S THE WORK AROUND:

The most recent Daily News Roundup post appears at the top of the list of entries on each blog's homepage.

HTML is enabled.

Images and links display as you intended and as they did prior to the recent changes.

A new category called, "NEWS ROUNDUP" has been added to all blogs. This category serves as a filter. It does not replace or negate any similar categories that you may have created for your blog.  If you check that category on a news roundup post, then that entry will be placed at the top of the list until you create a newer news roundup post. If you are concerned that you might not post a news roundup post every day and you don't the post to look stale, you could title the posts, "Local News Roundup" without the date.

Contents placed in the BODY tab of the text editor is the content that will show on your homepage. Content placed in the EXTENDED tab will not show until a reader clicks on the post. If you want the entire News Roundup post to be displayed on your homepage, just place it all in the BODY tab. We have significantly increased the number of words that will be displayed before being cutoff.

We have already republished the templates to accommodate these changes. We have also modified today's news roundup posts.

Again, thank you for your feedback on this issue. The solution is a direct result of your timely feedback.